According to EBA instructions on IRRBB (Annex XXIX), Part 5.1, "Generally, institutions shall report values positively across the templates. Figures expressed in monetary units referring to the level of EVE, level of NII and MV level shall in general be reported as a positive figure, irrespective of whether it refers to an asset or a liability, although exceptions shall be observed".

In application of this rule, all cells referring to EVE, NII and MV levels in template J_02.00 (columns c0030, c0100, c0130) should be represented with a positive value. The same standard would be applied to rows r0030, r0120 and r0150 of template J_01.00, where specific validation rules are in place requiring a positive value.

With reference to the MV level, assuming that the reporting bank had a negative imbalance between assets and liabilities (assets minus Liabs < 0, having larger amounts of liabilities in hedge accounting relationships), this would be correctly reflected in template J_02.00, where the formula {r0570-r0610+r0530} applied to column c0130 should returns a negative value. However in template J_01.00 of the respective currency, since it is required to report a total amount expressed with a positive sign (as required by validation rule v16332_s), the measure would conflict with the one represented in template J_02.00, since it would have the opposite sign. In light of this example on MV, which can be extended to EVE and NII levels as well, we ask whether the approach shown (consisting to express all the Levels with a positive sign) is correct, or if a negative sign would be represented in template J01.00 despite the presence of the aforementioned validation rule.